Author: Lindsey Claassen

7 months

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At this time seven months ago, we were wrapped in the final, sacred hours with our son. Completing tasks for him one last time. Doing my motherly duties once more for him before handing him back to his Heavenly Father. Bathing him. Combing his hair. Dressing him in fresh, new clothes. Moments that in life seem mundane and never ending, but at the edge of death they were hallowed and spiritual.

Somehow we’re here. Seven months without him. Without his smile. His hugs. His noise, movement, mess, enthusiasm, and bad ideas. I would never have thought I could survive seven months without one of my children. I still wonder often how I am. If I am.

So much of our life looks and acts normal. We still have movie nights and play Catan too late into the evening. We drag kids to ball practices and home from track meets. We go on dates and laugh with friends. I do laundry and sweep the floors.

So much isn’t normal though. I open emails with mock-ups of a headstone with my son’s name on it. I write thank you notes with words like “that’s a beautiful way to honor Deacon’s memory”. I go out of my way to drive away from the children’s hospital when going right by it would get me to my destination sooner. I fight back panic attacks when the guy at Best Buy goes on and on about the O2 monitor on the new Apple Watch. I crawl into bed with my sleeping children and watch their chest rise and fall and listen to their whisper-quiet breathing trying to figure out why I couldn’t keep Deacon breathing. And if I stop watching them, will they stop too?

Maybe normal from the outside. But not normal really. Our life has been wadded up like a piece of paper. And while we’re choosing the path towards healing….fighting for color and life…and slowly unfolding that piece of paper back out, I know it will never be smooth again. The wrinkles of grief and loss will always be there, no matter how flat we get that paper.

In the midst of it all, there is peace I could not explain, that I neither deserve nor understand. A couple weeks ago was Good Friday. It was hard but also such a gift to my hurting heart. A marking in time that I could intimately relate to. Death of a son. Suffering. Sorrow. Grief. Pain. Pleading for another way — any other way.

But then comes Easter Sunday. Rebirth. Beautiful restoration. Hope. A reminder that our pain and suffering were taken so that we can and will see Deacon again. In truth, Deacon is the one living. And I’m white-knuckle-clinging to the hope that I’ll being alive one day too.

So while some days have normal moments of errands and paying bills, other days I dig my fingers into the soft earth above where my precious son is buried and weep until there is nothing left in me. Apologizing to him over and over that I didn’t do more. That I couldn’t save him. That I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.

Either way, time keeps moving. We keep loving. Because I can’t think of a better way to honor Deacon than to feel this agony, acknowledge our wound, and rise in our pain…rather than be buried by it.

I miss you, Deacon. Ache for you. I’m trying. To be the things I loved most in you. I want to make you proud. I want to be the kind of mom who rises. You’re in our every moment. I feel you.

This sorrow is a small price to pay to be your mother.

Six!

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Last week the day Madden had been waiting 365 days for finally arrived…his 6th birthday!

He still LOVES footie pj’s which makes my heart melt and I’ll be buying them for him until he moves out and maybe after cause 😍.

In planning for his party he went through approximately 127 different themes. I finally got him focused down to a Lego party and hoped he didn’t wake up that morning wanting a Spider-Man Lamborghini party (he’s a fan of theme-mixing).

Madden is so fun to celebrate. He’s enthusiastic and grateful. He has so many interests that you can’t go wrong. Literally everything gives him the giggles, he adores when he can make others laugh, and he gives the best hugs.

It’s been a year I never could have fathomed for him. He’s working through deep and long-term hurts. He will be profoundly different without Deacon by his side anymore. But I can see his resilience. He works so hard each day to learn things that come easier to other kids his age. Social norms, appropriate emotional expressions, and communication don’t come easy for him but he wants so much to please and he’s come so far in a year of remote learning, masks, and huge loss. He’s just amazing.

Birthday cheese fries!

I’m still in denial that my youngest is somehow 6 but I’m so very grateful he’s mine!

Take a Hike

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Last weekend was gorgeous outside so we grabbed some friends, loaded up 8 kids ages 4-14, and headed to Independence, KS to check out the Elk River Trail.

It was more beautiful than I was expecting. Trees, hills, rocks, and an incredible lake. The whole trail is 15 miles point-to-point so our crew only made it 2 miles in before deciding we should head back out and not push our luck with all the littles. (Tiny people mutiny’s are real!) They did so great though. It really was a wonderful trail.

Next, we found a lunch spot at the dam of the lake where they were letting out a significant amount of water. The kids got doused with a couple unruly waves but had a blast.

After this we headed into Independence where we’d heard there was a free zoo and park. The “zoo” certainly wasn’t anything to write about but the kids had a great time anyway!

Next, we wound our way to Elk Falls. I was again surprised to come across something so lovely and beautiful so close to home (how have I never been here?!). The bridge and falls were so fun to explore and we had it to ourselves.

We finished off the day with Mexican food and then one last stop at the cutest little roadside drive-in.

It was a really good day. Yes, there were tears at times. Deacon’s absence screams so loud in my ears on adventures like this. This was the type of day he LIVED for, and we were with his very best friends. Our friends cried with us. They feel him missing too and it’s such a gift to not have to hide our hurt. We feel their sadness too and feel less alone. But we also laughed, remembered, and exhausted ourselves with adventure…and that’s a life I want to keep living. Even when it hurts.

I’m still getting used to not hearing his voice up ahead on the trail somewhere (cause he certainly wouldn’t be back with his old mom). I’m still getting used to not having to worry about him jumping on the rail of that dam wall. I’m still getting used to what we look like in family pictures. But when the Bible says “He is close to the broken-hearted”, I think it looks like this. Days like this one. In his creation. With friends we can seamlessly move from laugher to tears and back again. Watching my four beautiful, still-here children laugh and explore until they pass out in their car seats.

6 Months

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A long time ago I read somewhere that if God were small enough to be understood, He wouldn’t be big enough to be worshiped. Often that’s brought comfort. Its a release from having to have all the answers. A reminder to keep a childlike faith. Sometimes though…man…what I wouldn’t give for a little understanding.

6 months without him. 6 months closer to seeing him again. Today, as texts poured in, friends and neighbors brought by bright and beautiful flowers, videos of him were played and replayed and sent from friend to friend, plans for a headstone were tweaked, and dinner was brought to us, I sat again and tried to comprehend that this is our life. He’s really gone. My brain just can’t get there yet.

Six entire months without him. Half of a year. It’s still unbelievable to me. Incomprehensible. Impossible. I’ve realized these last 6 months that I always had a wrong understanding of the “denial” part of the grief process. I just thought maybe it was that a person didn’t want to believe it. As though maybe if I don’t believe it, it can’t be true. But it’s more than that. It’s a literal, actual, disbelief. I still CAN NOT wrap my mind around the fact that he’s really gone. That those tragic and precious hospital days happened. Surely the doctor announcing his time of death that repeats itself over and over in my head daily is somehow just a dream. Denial runs deep.

In the impossible though, Deacon feels so close. The reason it’s still so hard to believe is because he’s still so with me. And while it’s easy to just be sad, I can also start to list all that he gave me and there’s no way to feel anything but joy that I got to be his mom and deep, deep gratitude that he came to me. That I got to call him mine for seven years and eight days. I could never possibly begin to say how incredibly grateful I am for him.

Because of Deacon I know:

  • deep, unconditional, uncontainable, limitless, unchanging, undying love
  • Heaven is here with us, around us.
  • emotions can be conflicting and opposing yet happening at the same time. darkness + light; shattered + unbreakable; hopeful + lost; fighting to live + begging to die
  • a braver voice
  • a deeper purpose

The same voice that whispered, “you will GET UP” to him in the hospital says it to me now each morning. Even though I don’t want to. Surviving the unsurvivable. Only because of a God who is, thankfully, big enough to be worshiped even when I don’t understand, and a little boy who makes me so, so thankful every single day that I got to be the one he called Mom.

A dear friend sent this video today and I laughed through the tears. Just a tiny clip but it reminded again about the LIFE he brought. Still brings.

Thunderstorms

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So many times in a week we look around at something fun we’re doing, sigh, and say, “Deacon would have loved this.” But today began with walls of rain, claps of thunder, and even some hail, and I thought, “Deacon would have hated this.”

Out of five kids, Deacon was the only one ever scared of storms. He seemed to have an innate sense of their arrival and I’d crack my eyes to see his little form standing at my bedside, often before the first drop of rain had even fallen. “It’s going to storm,” he’d whisper. I’d lift my blankets and he’d scramble in next to me, all knees and elbows. The only time a kiddo really ever slept with us was Deacon during a storm.

Today, the thunder woke me and I strained to hear the squeak of our door opening and his feet padding in. Instead, I was slammed again with the realization he wouldn’t be coming. We’d sleep this storm out kid-free. I clung to his favorite blankie (that stays in our bed now), squeezed my eyes shut and searched my memory for every sense of his warm body curled into mine. His back against my chest, my nose pressed into the back of his head with his perfect little boy smell all around, his always-noisy breathing steadying back into sleep.

I miss the things he loved. And now, I realize, I miss the things he hated, too. I just miss it all.

I wonder if it storms in heaven. I hope it does…I adore a good storm. If it does, I imagine Deacon has a new appreciation for them in a realm without fear. And a Heavenly Father wrapping His arms around him until I can get there.

While he may have hated the storms…he was always up for the mud puddles left behind.

Legacy Building

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We’ve had a lot of reason to cry in the last 5 months, but this week it was tears of awe and gratitude when we opened a little note in the mail. We were reminded once again, people are so very lovely.

Family, friends, strangers…you’ve raised over $12,000 in Deacon’s name!

In the messy, overwhelming, all consuming days immediately following Deacons passing, we knew we needed to pick somewhere meaningful to him to designate for people to direct monetary memorials. It was one of the few quick and easy decisions. The Wichita Children’s Home.

I’m not sure what I expected would come in…I didn’t have the capacity to give it much thought…but maybe a couple thousand dollars. You’ve blown us away with your love and support. It is humbling and encouraging. More than I could express.

Deacon adored being a foster brother. His history in foster care himself, and his outgoing, inclusive personality made him the perfect welcoming ambassador for hurting children. From 2 days to 17 years, he championed each child who entered our home.

On our stair landing is a cork board (that needs to be upgraded!) with a picture of each child who has come through our home. Deacon knew their names, remembered little facts about them, and would sit on the window seat and pray over them with me.

I’d selfishly and happily throw the money back to each donor if I could just have him back, but in the lack of that option, please know that your generosity is felt. Our hearts are warmed knowing that this $12,000+ is building a legacy of Deacon’s life that goes beyond an ornery, outgoing little boy. I have no doubt that it will be used well. I’ve seen first hand the love the staff at the Children’s Home pours out on every child in their care. $12,000 matters. Gosh, he would have loved this.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you. ❤️

P.S. if you’re wanting to join in, online donations can be made at: https://wch.org/donate Make sure to include Deacon’s name so we can know!

5 Months

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5 months without him. I wouldn’t be able to say that out loud. Typing it seems just ridiculous.

I still feel like a bumbling mess. Trying to help my little family through this. I look at clues for one another’s method of coping, even though I don’t understand them. I try to decide what God’s purpose could be in giving signs of warning before, and comfort after, but not bothering to save Deacon. I’m trying to figure out how to act normal enough to make my still here children feel safe, while not pretending everything is ok.

It’s not ok. I just miss Deacon. We miss him. Our life feels unnatural. I’m still shocked. Bewildered. Sad.

We’re relearning our roles. Our family dynamics have been altered and I can see the kids struggling to find grip again. Settle back into their place. Who’s the instigator? Peacekeeper? Fun starter? Rule follower? The part they had before doesn’t always work with such a spirited cog missing. His roles are up for grabs and while we talk about living out the parts of Deacon we loved most in him, I also fear I’m burdening them with my desire desperate need to keep him alive in them somehow.

5 months. I miss my son.

Gotcha Day

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Today is Deacon’s “gotcha day”. Six years adopted. He spent 521 days in foster care. And then, by the gift of God, we got to call him ours forever.

We didn’t know that “forever” would only be another 5 and a half years on earth. That my role as his second mom would be over so soon.

To be done with court dates, social workers, different last names, unknown futures, broken down foster care systems….it was like a glorious deep breath of spring air after a dark, stale winter.

It’s tempting to just be sad. But getting to be Deacon’s mom (I still can’t believe that I got picked for that!) means that I owe him more than my sadness. It means that I get to be the things I loved most about Deacon.

I loved that he was:

  • Brave
  • Confident
  • A doer
  • Funny
  • Fearless
  • Adventurous
  • Able
  • Friendly
  • Kind
  • Outgoing
  • Generous

It’s a lot to try to live up to. He made it look so easy.

Tonight, we’ll have the cupcakes to celebrate and talk about Deacon. I’ll love him with one foot in eternity and love my other children with one foot in time. And I’ll thank God every minute of every day that I was the one chosen to be his mom. He was chosen for us and we were chosen for him.

“Few people in this world meet someone who so intricately and radically changes their lives simply by entering it. Few people have their lives split into such a powerful before and after. And while it may be so easy to look at our before and afters through the lens of deep pain and sorrow, you have been given a sacred gift: to know a love so pure, so raw, that it extends across world, through time, and death cannot even touch it.

You’ve been given a sacred gift, a second chance, an invitation to never be the same from this point forward simply because they existed, you were chosen to be theirs, and you are tied together, eternally, your love a force greater than life itself.” Lexi Behrndt

Still so in awe that he chose us. ❤️

Messy Theology

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When you believe that your God allows the people you love dearly to die much too early, what does that say about your God, and who you are becoming?

Who would you be and how would you feel and how would you live life if you decided to believe that God, whatever you believe God to be, only allows each of us to die right on time? Regardless of the circumstances of our death.

What if you decided to believe that it could be no other way? That everyone dies at the right time. Even if you don’t understand it. And never will. When you’re in your physical body. Who would you be if you decided to believe that everyone dies at the perfect time? Everyone. — Tom Zuba

I read that quote by Tom Zuba (look him up…what an incredible story of loss and life) a few weeks ago and it has bounced around in my head ever since. Deacon is gone, and what I choose to believe about God because of it is life-changing. While I do (did?) believe that no one dies by accident, guilt plagues me. Guilt has made a home on my shoulder. Guilt walks beside me around the block on a sunny day. It sits beside me driving the kids to school. It stares back at me in the mirror. I can even find it in the eyes of friends and family looking back at me (although I’m certain it couldn’t be found in their heart or mind, it’s only me placing it there). Cause the thing I was supposed to do….the only thing, really…I didn’t do. Protect my child.

In a variety of scenarios it follows me. I didn’t get him to the right doctors. I didn’t push hard enough to get him to that program in Denver to be a part of that asthma study. I didn’t take him to the hospital soon enough. I didn’t find the right combination of drugs. I didn’t see that this time something was different. I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t. It’s in my head on repeat.

What I would have said I believe about God, before losing Deacon, was that He knows the number of each of our days on this earth. That nothing I did or didn’t do killed Deacon. That “all the days ordained for Deacon were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:16 I would have said all that. But I find myself saying it now and then adding a *but maybe* to it. Maybe if I’d tried… Maybe if I’d seen…. Maybe if I’d called…

I’m on shaky ground. But I think that’s ok. God’s ground isn’t shaky. He’s firm. And he’s letting me fling my wonky theology and wounded heart at him. This time is creating who I am becoming and what it says about the God I believe in.

I’m out of words to comfort myself and put a bandaid over the guilt. I only have God. He’s there while I try to be gentle with myself but fail. He’s there when I know I’m supposed to have hope but just don’t have the oomph for it. He’s there when I practice telling Him that I’m not fine. That this is NOT fine. He’s there.

In the school drop off line when I say, “You feel so far.”

When I’m making beds and say, “I’m not sure how to see You here.”

In the grocery store when I think, “I can’t find You but I really want to.”

Washing the dishes whispering the uncomfortable truth, “I don’t know if I want to find You, but I want to say that this hurts.”

These honest, messy, prayers, brought to Him before cleaning them up. The guilt. The questions about my God. Is He good? Is He there? What do I truly believe the Bible says about life and death? The ache of who I am becoming through this. I’m counting on what’s being created in my darkness and chaos.

And so I ponder again, “Who would you be if you decided to believe that everyone dies at the perfect time? Everyone.” Working on finding out.

Deacon Aug. 2017 ~ 2 yrs old “And Jesus thank you” was how he finished every prayer.

And If Not

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Long-time friends recently passed the nine year mark of their baby girl going to heaven after a year long battle with leukemia. I can take myself back to those days so easily. The shock that Paxten hadn’t made it…that she hadn’t gotten her miracle. The empty, hollow feeling of what now?

I’ve watched these friends learn to live in a world without their daughter for nine years. I’ve seen them crawl towards love, fight for joy, and build a new life that absolutely includes Pax…just not they way they’d hoped and longed. This year had an entirely new perspective for all they’ve been though. This year I couldn’t help but go back to our desperate prayers for her healing. Those same groanings I repeated over my little boy nine years later.

I started thinking how wonderful to be the parent who can proclaim, “God is good! My child is a miracle!” because their child could have died but didn’t.

But even more, the depth of peace, knowing, and love for the parent whose child has died and can say the same thing.

Nine years later, my friends stood and said, God is good. While my heart still breaks for their loss, what an inspiration and hope for my raw and confused heart.